If You Must Know (Potomac Point #1)(49)

As she made her way down the hallway, Erin grabbed her chest. “It smells so good. I love you!”

That made me smile. With everything else going downhill, I soaked up any affirmation. “Hopefully, its taste will live up to your expectations.”

Erin scrubbed one hand along the shorn side of her head. “Want me to clean lettuce?”

I hesitated. There is a proper way to clean lettuce: first you chop it into small pieces, then rinse and dry it with the spinner and crisp it in a metal bowl with paper towels to absorb any remaining water. Keeping the lettuce crisp also requires making sure that diced cucumber, tomatoes, and onions are placed at the bottom of the bowl, beneath the cleaned lettuce, so the liquid in those veggies doesn’t make the lettuce soggy. Unfortunately, I’d seen Erin make a salad. She rips the lettuce in a haphazard fashion and leaves too much water on the leaves, then dumps everything on top with a dash of salt! But between questioning my perfectionism and the more crucial issues on our figurative plates, I didn’t want to be a jerk about the salad.

“Sure.” I tossed the mail on the counter. “There’s romaine in the refrigerator.”

Based on her expression, one might think I had sprouted a third eye. I supposed I didn’t often accept her help.

I could admit to being particular, but I took care of my own needs and never asked others to meet them for me. A week ago, the idea that my habits might’ve driven Lyle away had crushed me. Now a silent rage slithered up my spine.

Erin located a knife and the salad spinner. She tossed the lettuce onto the cutting board while blurting, “Did you know Mom’s paying a medium to talk to Dad?”

“What?” I dropped the wooden spoon into the pot of sauce I’d been stirring.

“Yup.” Erin nodded while chopping. “I’m not sure what she expects Dad’s ghost to do, but she’s flushing what little money she has left down the toilet.”

I closed my eyes, absorbing that blow. Erin hadn’t meant to take a jab at me, but we both knew why Mom’s finances were strained. “Did you tell her to stop?”

“I told her the ‘medium’ didn’t impress me, but that just made her more determined to enjoy it. Anyway, I’m not pissing off my new landlord by telling her what to do a second time.” Erin cringed, shaking her head. “But you could probably get away with it.”

The downside of being Mom’s favorite: both Kevin and Erin relied on me to approach her with anything controversial. “Level with me. How bad is it?”

“Not horrible.” Erin rinsed the basket of torn leaves before giving the spinning device a half-hearted pump. I suppressed the urge to take it from her and wring the lettuce dry. “I mean, she’s a little forgetful. Repeats herself more than usual. She misplaced the car keys once—left them in the fridge beside the milk. It took us an hour to find them. I found a fork in the garbage can yesterday. But she hasn’t burned the house down or fainted again.”

Keys in the fridge? Forks in the garbage? Plenty of mothers suffered “mommy brain” hiccups, but ours wasn’t chasing toddlers. “Should we call a doctor?”

“Not yet. I mean, she is sixty-two. Maybe forgetfulness is normal at that age.”

Maybe. I hardly trusted my judgment lately, nor would I want to insult Mom by suggesting that she was losing it.

“Are you two getting along?” I hadn’t meant that to sound patronizing. Although a minuscule part of me felt threatened by the idea of Erin winning Mom over like she had Dad, I wanted only to make sure Mom wasn’t beating her down.

“Well, she’s letting me offer yoga lessons in the basement.” She screwed up her face. “Actually, that alone proves she’s not herself.”

Wow. Even when we were teens, Mom didn’t want our house to be the hangout house. She’d had enough of other people’s kids at her job. If Erin and I had been more compatible, that probably wouldn’t have bothered me. But being discouraged from inviting people over had made socializing harder for me—a shy person who didn’t get invited everywhere.

“You’re teaching at the house?” I’d never been able to keep up with my sister’s plans, mostly because she didn’t plan ahead. “Did you get fired from Give Me Strength?”

“No, I didn’t get fired.” She shot me a peeved look. “I can manage both. The more money I make, the sooner I can find my own housing.” She then barked a surprised laugh. “I just figured out why Mom isn’t stopping me from teaching in the basement.”

Normally, that kind of realization elicited a snarky aside, but Erin had a decided lightness about her. Single at her age and basically homeless, yet nothing troubled her for long. I could use a dose of whatever ran through her blood.

“You seem pretty cheerful, all things considered.”

“I’m saving money. I’m helping with Mom. I’ve made plans to make more money.” She planted her hands on the counter, lettuce abandoned and wilting beside her. “Things are moving in a good direction, as long as I don’t get sidetracked.”

“Sidetracked by what?”

“More like by whom.” She drummed her fingers against her lips. “I keep thinking about Eli.”

“The guy who bought Dad’s records?” I still thought of them as Dad’s, not hers.